SaaS billing

Vindicia Subscribe is a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS), subscription management and billing solution. Our mature platform is easy to deploy, connects to all of your processes, and scales to meet your needs.

As a pure SaaS billing solution, there is no on-premise equipment or deployment to deal with. The deployment of Vindicia Subscribe is quick, typically just a matter of weeks. The cost is also easy to swallow. Rather than budgeting the full project upfront, Vindicia spreads the cost through opex-friendly monthly payments. And with Vindicia, you are never on your own. Our subscription experts help you define requirements and execute the deployment.

Why deploy a SaaS billing platform?

The subscription business model offers companies a fast track to growth. Yet to harness that growth potential, businesses need a subscription-centric billing solution that can keep up with their vision, market demands, and innovation in products and services.

However, a robust, subscription-oriented billing solution is not always the top consideration when launching a subscription business – when the onus is on getting off the ground and establishing the business. At a certain point, however, an upgrade from a legacy billing approach to a more capable billing platform is necessary to handle the volume and complexity of recurring revenue operations, as well as facilitate growth at scale.

The longer the decision to upgrade is put off, the more costs the business will likely incur. The question that every subscription business leader must answer is: “to build or to buy?” Or more accurately, should your company continue pouring IT budget into your limited billing system, or migrate to a mature SaaS billing platform?

Here are some billing considerations to help guide your decision-making process.

The required billing feature set

One hit product or service can make a subscription company — but lack of innovation can break it. Markets and consumer preferences move fast, and subscription-based companies need to constantly introduce new products or promotions while continuously refining old ones. At a practical level, businesses must be equipped with go-to-market tools that enable them to seamlessly push these options to consumers and generate revenue.

Your billing solution plays a critical role in going to market. Specifically, the feature set it offers in dynamic billing is of high importance to capitalizing on opportunities. Can your current platform run multiple experimental coupons? Bill faultlessly at high volume? Manage loyalty programs? Recover failed payments? Every new product or deal needs to have functional billing support along the entire subscriber lifecycle.

A robust feature set can drive high performance in customer acquisition and retention. But in the context of upgrading your solution, there are limitations to consider if going the homegrown build route. The more features you include, the more costly and timely the build project becomes. While you may not need support for foreign currencies now, you eventually will if global expansion is in the plans. Alternatively, deploying a professional SaaS-based billing solution will deliver an expansive feature set ready to go on Day 1.

Total cost of ownership

The capital and operating costs of the solution cannot be ignored as an influential factor in the decision-making process. A homegrown platform will entail committing sizable resources of labor, time and money for hardware, software licenses, services and support, electricity, servers, real estate and ad-hoc needs. Budgeting for such projects can be particularly challenging given the IT infrastructure demands, which by nature often run into costly delays. A SaaS subscription billing option can be more easily budgeted for, as you pay predetermined, regularly scheduled charges.

The total cost of ownership does not end with the homegrown build phase, however. Maintenance is an ongoing expense for proprietary platforms, and every update, fix or security patch will require an additional influx of capital. Such responsibilities for a SaaS billing product lie with the vendor.

Business agility

The modern subscription business is one that is built on principles of agility and responsiveness. Your billing platform has to exemplify those ideals by allowing your business to be responsive to market conditions and consumer demands.

The turnaround from concept to tangible asset needs to be as streamlined as possible. How rapidly can you iterate and bill for new offers? How long would it take to add support for mobile payment options? Can new promotions be generated on social trends? The answer to these questions will inform how agile your business truly is.

Forward progression can be halted or hindered by a homegrown solution that can't keep pace with growth at scale. Businesses that need that extra gear will then have to research their options for plugging more money into the solution or writing off the platform and turning to a SaaS billing solution.

Subscription experience and expertise

Subscriber management is both an art and a science. The experience of subscription industry veterans who have been there before and possess strategic insights is invaluable. This is particularly relevant in subscription billing, which is a total departure from the traditional one-time purchase. Planning for and managing recurring revenue calls into action different skills and knowledge. For instance, how many retries should be devoted to a payment that has failed because of wrong card information? And attempted at what intervals?

Navigating the payments ecosystem is not an easy affair when building a solution from the ground up. For example, negotiating for contracts with payment processors can be an onerous exercise. The SaaS billing option, however, gives users access to rich insights drawn from millions of transactions in a fraction of the time they would be able to accrue such experience through their own means. Aside from the platform being a functional tool, it can also be a valuable resource for growing companies that would otherwise have to acquire that knowledge externally.

At scale, the right solution can help effortlessly deploy best practices and help generate deeper insight to optimize operations. Data collection and analysis is crucial here. Businesses need a platform that can deliver deep reporting on variables like payment failures and payment method choice.

Learn more about SaaS billing

Getting that all-in-one SaaS billing platform that can satisfy all these billing considerations cost-effectively doesn't have to be a pipe dream. With Vindicia Subscribe, recurring revenue businesses can access robust features, functionality and expertise to drive performance in customer acquisition and retention. For a further analysis of the “build vs. buy” or SaaS billing question, read our white paper “Is your subscription billing system restraining your business growth?"